Topic: Sonic Advance 2

[Fluke Worm]

I'm not done playing the game yet but one Con I've already found is that the chao garden has to be unlocked.  This doesn't seem necessary to me because it's really a differant game in it's self.  Unlike the other unlockables : sound test; boss levels; extra character & extra level.  In my opinion the time trials(available at start) should have been the first unlockable as apposed to the tiny chao garden. The perfect example of a game that got it right is Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga were Mario Bros is available to play right away. Also it's a pain in the azz to unlock the garden, you need 7 chaos emeralds and I aint got 1 yet.

The reason this bugs me is because I want to use the SA2 cartridge as a portable memory unit for my choa pets off the GCN, when I get my Cube back. Which leads me to a question.

Does the Tiny Chao Garden get automatically unlocked when connected to the Cube (with a Sonic Adventure game in of course)?

[Fluke Worm]

Well, I haven't beaten the game yet, and maybe I never will. This may go to some end to describe what I think of the game, to say the least it has control and gameplay issues. OH, and if anyone was wondering the stupid "Tiny Chao Garden" does not get automatically unlocked when conected to a Sonic Adventure game(for sure SAdventure2). I'm sure I'll be plenty sick of the game by the time I unlock the TCG, let me break it down for you. 7 emeralds to unlock the garden, 7 "Speacial Rings" per ACT(not zone as said in the SAdvance2 booklet), 2 acts per zone. After each pair of acts(a zone)& boss battle you supposedly get a chance to play a speacial level (assuming you collect all the speacial rings in the zone) to get a emerald. What complicates things more is the fact that when you die you lose your SRs even after you get to the check point, also you can't go backwards too far in most stages sooo in closing I recommend waiting to see how Sonic Advance 3 turns out.
Sorry if this review's too ranty like, so I'll touch on one last different(& more topical) problem, when playing this game it seems level memorization is a must because no matter how fast your reflexes are you will not be able to avoid some dangers which definitely takes away from the fun of the game.